Who Am I Online?

I think I’ve been taking myself too seriously online.

When I first started making Youtube videos I was so worried about a number of things: I wa scared people would think I was vain, that I would be embarrassing myself, that people would think I was cringey. I really wanted people to like me and think I was nice and people would follow me for that reason.

It’s been fun and everything but I think I’ve been too safe and not really being myself enough. I think I could be having more fun with it.

Online vs. Real Life

I decided to think about how I actually have fun in my actual real life (You know, the parts of my day that I don’t put on the internet) and I discovered something a bit different. Yeah, I love playing around with new makeup, and I love books and reading and talking about books, but the thing I have the most fun with… is just being an idiot.

Thinking back to all those times where I’ve had fits of giggles and laughed until I’ve cried, it all happens when I stop taking myself so seriously: when me and Dan watch crappy Youtube videos, when we sing badly together and change the lyrics in songs to stupid things, when me and Sarah-Jane used to tell each other stupid stories and I would do bad impressions and silly voices. They’re the fun things and they’re the kind of things I want to do in my videos.

When I put up my first few videos online, I was scared that people wouldn’t like me. But I was even more scared when I posted my most recent video because it’s so different from anything else I’ve posted and it’s like I’m posting the real me for the first time: silly voices, pretending to be a silly character and mocking everything I can – I’m mocking myself, I’m mocking Buzzfeed and I’m mocking the people who mock Buzzfeed. It’s what I do. Now I’m just doing it on video.

Who Do I Want To Be?

When I actually stopped for a minute and looked at my favourite Youtubers, the list didn’t include makeup channels and girls telling stories about ‘OMG so this one time I went on this really bad date and it was really bad and then he did something embarrassing and then I did something embarrassing but then he still liked me but I was like omg I can’t do this so I just ghosted him but now he keeps texting me and he’s a total stalker so should I like call the police or whaaaat?!’

Instead, my favourite Youtubers are the ones who just stopped caring so much about how they’re percieved and just have fun with it. That’s when I realised I just take myself too seriously online, I need to get over that.

So, for the people who haven’t seen the side of me that’s stupid, childish, acts like an idiot, makes terrible jokes and embraces her cringey-ness, I’m sorry but also, like, not because it’s fun.